Hi, I am an longtime Zope-programmer and very much interested in such projects, but I don't know anything about ILS at all. But I am sure, if it can be done with PHP, it can be easely done better with Zope ;-) Can you give me some hints about the ILS data-format, how is it related to ISIS ? What does Openbiblio implement. --On Montag, Juni 03, 2002 15:29:15 +0000 Tim Chase <chase@iac.net> wrote:
Zope folks,
I have been a python programmer for about as long as I have been a librarian, which is seven years. I consult with a large metropolitan library regarding their automated systems. I recently began the planning stages of taking over as the sole librarian at a local church and at a very small high school.
I am familiar with the Integrated Library System (ILS) products from most of the major vendors, so I am also familiar with their prices and problems. I began looking for an Open Source option for my new libraries (see http://www.oss4lib.org). There are only a few viable options. Koha is a Perl/MySql system currently used in several New Zealand public libraries. There are two SourceForge projects that have semi-working catalog and circulation systems: OpenBiblio and PhpMyLibrary, both using PHP/MySql.
Judging from Slashdot (http://slashdot.org/askslashdot/00/08/22/2040245.shtml), very few programmers have an appreciation for the complexity of an ILS. Zope has been identified by the library community as a tool for patron portals (see http://www.oss4lib.org), but I can't find any mention of a Zope-based ILS, maybe because Zope programmers do appreciate the complexities of metadata and dealing with the MARC format.
All of that was prelude to this: Zope seems like the ideal platform for an ILS. I am more of a Zope integrator than a Zope developer, but it seems like an ILS in Zope would be less complicated and more flexible than a similar program using another framework.
OCLC has a MARC to Dublin Core translator (http://alcme.oclc.org/marc2dc/index.html). I assume that something like this could be used to populate catalog records and possibly even holdings records (there is a MARC format for Holdings Information).
What are your thoughts? I have no experience designing such a large system, but I would much rather use a Zope-based ILS than any of the current Open Source offerings.
Thanks for your time,
--Tim Chase chase@iac.net
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